Introduction

CACAW

A bird as big as a nine-year-old swooped down and nearly bit my ear off. Thankfully it only grazed it, leaving a stream of blood edging its way down my neck. The blood is sticky and uncomfortable. I struggled to restrain myself from moving. If I move, then it's over for me. The birds will eat away at my flesh and bone until there's nothing left, even if I'm a Saning.

"Damn satanic birds…." I mumbled.

The birds circled around me, fidgeting with their feathers and pecking at the wide and large tree branches. Excitingly glittering. The branch I'm on is more than two kilometers above ground, but that's the least of my worries. These birds would kill me before I even made it ten meters falling from the tree branch.

So how did I end up in this situation? I come from a wealthy family, very privileged, was engaged to a member of another prestigious family, was bound to be a leader of one of the cities, everything was going my way. Mostly. All I had to do was keep quiet and not do anything rash. So that's exactly what I didn't do. Because that's boring. And I absolutely loathe being bored. Saying that, I will tell you in the most cliche way possible about how I got in this rather bothersome situation.

.......

My family and I arrived at the City of Trees half-past ten in the morning, right on the dot. Unlike me, my family is never late. A custom that I should have inherited from my parents, but life isn't always that convenient. I would truly be a disgrace if my family was late because (although it is not entirely known to the public) my family consists of the most influential people in the City of Birds. We are basically the dictators of our City. I say City because that is its formal name; in reality, it is a small nation. A lot of the so-called-City's are more like nations. The City of Trees is an exception. It is what it is named, a City. It's still a big city, but not a nation. We're here to meet my husband. After all, my marriage was always bound to be a politically strengthening one.

My parents' and grandparents' marriage was also politically strengthening. I was born because my family needed to have a child to maintain power, not because they wanted one. 'Fuel-less fire' is how my Mom described it to me.

My parents would drop me off at the hotel room they booked and then go to see our future family without me. A very old-fashioned way of arranging a wedding, but this whole marriage was old-fashioned.

The City of Trees was covered in outrageously large trees (as the name may dictate). It had a great abundance of sky bridges (bridges suspended high in the air close to the height of Earth's skyscrapers and are supported by a powerful magnetic retraction). With the sky bridges, we could see the top of the trees from our hover vehicle (a car-like vehicle that uses no gas and is powered by magnets, we like magnets). Some of the trees had decorations made up of colorful ribbons and some of its leaves painted to make up spectacular images. How I would love to paint or decorate a tree. That would be so much better than just staying in my hotel room all day to wait for my wedding.

There were apartment buildings made out of trees. There were even man-made balconies on the top of the trees. The buildings that weren't made out of a tree seemed to revolve around the trees either circularly or geometrically. The trees are so big that I wonder if the buildings on the bottom ever got any sun.

We arrived at the hotel twenty minutes to eleven. My parents were planning to meet my future husband's family at eleven AM and spend the night at the family's castle. They told me to expect them back around noon the next day. I quickly unloaded my things onto a trolly and rolled them to the front desk. Like a lot of buildings, the hotel was made out of a live tree. How they kept the tree alive, I will never know.

The whole hotel had a modern look to it. Wood pillars had fashionable holes and divots in them that were great for hiding places. Some of the spots had little succulents or tropical plants; others were filled in with sleek glass. The furniture was either made out of glass or wood with cushions laid fashionably on them, and the light from the large windows and sliding glass door reflected off and was trapped in the decorations in a way that made the whole lobby sparkle.

The one thing I didn't like about the hotel was the cameras. Every angle, there was one. There was absolutely nowhere to hide in case of an emergency. It made me uneasy.

"Miss, are you here to check-in?". I hadn't realized it, but an employee from the front desk walked up to me.

"Ah! Yes, sorry. I was just admiring the architecture," I said with a smile.

"Right this way, Miss," he said, leading me to the front desk.

The front desk clerk was a... what's the polite way to write this… thick man. He looked at me with a side-eye.

He opened his watery mouth, "Miss, you do know how expensive this hotel is, correct?" he said in a deep and groggy voice.

"Yes, sir, I do. And I will be checking in under the Abruzi name," I responded with the utmost clarity I could muster.

"Can we please see some identification, mam?" he said, still giving me the side-eye.

"Sir, is that really necessary?"

"Yes, mam, it is,"

"You see, my photo is very embarrassing… and it was taken three years ago, so it isn't very accurate."

"Yes, mam, I am aware that everyone has bad pictures of themselves… and how your celebrity families don't like to be noticed. You know that we have a much larger Mixes population, which could also mean others with transformation magic. So sorry, miss, but it can't be helped."

Oh well, it couldn't be helped, "here's my photo," I said, showing him a sleek ID card.

His eyes widened, and he took a bite of a deep-fried frosted pastry, "you sure this is you?"

"Yes, as I said, it's a terrible picture, and I'm not photogenic in the first place,"

"You weren't joking when you said it was a bad picture!" the man said, laughing a little.

"Yes… well, is it enough for identification?"

"Yeah. You know how it is, celebrities come here all the time. When we ask for identification, they get all huffy about it. Going on and on about how they don't want to, or it is an embarrassing picture. And you look at it, and it looks like they just came from a photoshoot! And I'm over here with a face that could never look good under any camera or lighting, and they're complaining!"

He took a second to deploy something between a laugh and a sigh, "but I see yours is the real deal! Don't get me wrong! You're beautiful in real life, but your photo!"

My formality slipped, "yeah, I know that my photo looks like I just came from a greasy pigpen. At least you know that if someone comes in with a good photo, then it isn't me!"

We had a good laugh about it for a solid minute. He finally looked at me and said, "well, miss, you've been a pleasure! Here's your room key; come by whenever you have questions!"

Walking off to my trolly with luggage, I said, "thank you!"

The key had the name Abruzi in cursive writing with three tallies indicating how many people can check-in under the Abruzi name.

Abruzi is not my real last name; it is just one of the names my family goes by. We can also go by Iconuche, Jazu, Kindo, and many others. Our real name is much different than what we usually go by, for security reasons.

One of the staff guided me to the elevator, where he got in to help me with my luggage. He seemed very uncomfortable and stiff. I saw him walking in, and he didn't look awkward. Maybe it was because he overheard what my name was?

My room was a house-sized, two-story suite with the same kind of decorations as the lobby (if I was to wait, I would wait in a luxury suite). And had a spectacular view of the whole city on the top floor. The living room (where the couch and TV were) stood a ginormous window that stretched to the second-floor ceiling. Even better, there was a balcony on the top floor. I could see the whole city from the balcony.

Birds danced and sang along to the wind. Some more grateful and colorful than others. There was one bird, it was sitting on a branch far away from the balcony. Its voice sounded like how a cheese grater or dust storm would sound if it had a voice. A tune of impending doom sang, like the silence then sudden wind gusts before a storm or a war. It looked like an eagle; just replace the golden color with a grayish color. It was too far away to identify what kind of bird it was. The bird reminded me of the warrior birds that protect my city. The warrior birds are used in battle and any other combat scenario.

The birds are partially why our City is so big. They helped us conquer land quickly and efficiently. The birds draw cosmic energy and could do almost anything with sound, from put organisms to sleep to make anything made of matter explode the way a wine glass would with high-frequency sounds. No one knows where they draw energy from and how they infused it in their songs, but some Mixes and humans have the same ability to make impossible things happen with no rhyme or reason. You can either do it, or you can't. Due to the mysterious nature of the power, it is commonly referred to as magic.

And just like that, I was bored. Even with the spectacular view, I wanted to do something. My father called me a restless spirit, and my mom called me impatient. Either could work.

I turned on the TV. Flipping from one channel to the next, cartoons to soap operas, ads for toothbrushes and sugar sprinkles, they all bore me. Finally, I found something interesting.

A pretty woman with curvature features starters to speak into a headset microphone. "This just in," a panel next to her flashed a picture of a young boy as she continued to talk, "many City of Trees citizens have gone missing. Many such as this young boy," she says, raising her hand to the panel with the picture of the boy, "we believe this may be an act of Mixes and human traffickers. Due to the spike in Mixes, females, and children kidnapped, we specifically implore that women, children, and Mixes are conscientious and travel in groups."

The whole screen flashed with columns of faces. At least two hundred to three hundred faces and names were recorded on the screen.

"We ask the public to please keep a lookout for these missing people." the girl's voice narrated over, "all were reported missing within the last two months."

She paused for a moment, and I realized I was on the edge of the coach. Maybe it was that bird that sent me on edge, but something about this was not normal. Mass kidnappings are never ordinary, but this, in particular, set me on edge.